tracy-small.jpgVisitors to Dorchester’s award winning Dinosaur Museum were thrilled to meet bestselling novelist Tracy Chevalier when she launched her new book Remarkable Creatures at the Museum on Tuesday 25th August.

Tracy, whose best-selling novel Girl with a Pearl Earring became an equally popular film spends a lot of her time in Dorset. Inspiration for her books often comes quite unexpectedly, in the case of the Girl with a Pearl Earring it was from one of Vermeer’s paintings, while her latest book, Remarkable Creatures was inspired by a trip to the Dinosaur Museum in Dorchester. 

“There was a gallery devoted to Mary Anning, who I’d never heard of. I was immediately drawn in, says Chevalier, “I always have those sudden moments of discovery when something strikes me that I want to write about it.”

Remarkable Creatures is a story based on Mary Anning, who was born in Lyme Regis in 1799 and became a major fossil collector on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast, now a World Heritage Site. She found the first complete skeleton of an ichthyosaur ever discovered.

Click here to obtain a signed copy of the book!